Kyle Palmieri and Ryan Getzlaf (power play) had the Ducks' other goals.

It was Getzlaf's goal that forged a 2-2 tie heading into the third period and capped a pivotal turn in the game.

The sequence began when Anaheim's Daniel Winnik was assessed a five-minute major for boarding Daniel Cleary.

In obvious pain, Cleary skated off holding his left arm and didn't return until the start of the third period.

The Red Wings, though, did nothing on the resulting power play, and when Getzlaf drew an interference call on Brendan Smith at 18:26, the power play ended.

Getzlaf then imposed his will further, firing a shot from the circles with several bodies screening Howard, tying the game at 19:28.

"You get a chance like that you want to bear down and get at least one goal, maybe a couple," defenseman Niklas Kronwall said. "For whatever reason, we couldn't get it done."

Getzlaf backed up the Red Wings defense and fired a shot high, his third goal of the playoffs.

Suddenly it was a tie game, and a glorious opportunity wasted.

"In hindsight we could have done a lot of things," coach Mike Babcock said. "You could go with your first two groups, call a timeout, and go again. We put a group in between. We didn't score on a power play, that's the bottom line.

"I don't think that was the end of the game, though. There's lots of coulda, woulda, shoulda stuff. The bottom line is, in a playoff game, we hit three posts tonight and they didn't go in.

"They were way better than us in the first, I thought we were way better than them in the second, I thought the third was even, and they scored in OT."